


A Gift

by Wittyandcharming



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Birthday Presents, Brotherly Love, Gen, Sherlock's Coat, body horror (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 17:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4314276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wittyandcharming/pseuds/Wittyandcharming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Sherlock receives his famous coat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Gift

**Author's Note:**

> This is old as balls and I have since moved WELL on from Sherlock, but I've always liked this piece. I hope you enjoy :)

On Sherlock’s 32nd birthday, his brother comes to visit him at his flat. It’s a squalid, small thing with too many books and a marine layer of cigarette smoke that hovers along the ceiling.

Mycroft has asked him to move several times, even offering to find a place for him, but he knows he might as well ask him to get a job or take up golf.

He walks up the stairs, the wallpaper peeling in some places and completely stripped away in others. Graffiti marks the plaster beneath the remaining stained strips, bleeding over the edges and onto the blue striped pattern that might once have been tasteful in a different time, and a different neighborhood.

Second floor, room number seven, and the sounds of banging and some unsavory cracking noise through the dingy green door. Mycroft shifts the generously sized white box beneath his arm and raps a short trio of knocks that silences the sounds and replaces them with thudding footsteps.

“Ah,” Sherlock says in a dull monotone when he wrenches the door open.

“You say that as though you expected someone else,” Mycroft says, his brows lifting along with the corners of his lips.

“Hoping I was wrong,” Sherlock replies, stepping aside to allow his brother in. “Don’t imagine that will happen again in the future. Unless you plan on making this a habit.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Mycroft says, hefting the box as Sherlock closes the door behind him. “You stop having birthdays, and I’ll stop coming over.”

Sherlock makes a sound in the back of his throat and turns away, and Mycroft notices the hammer in his hand for the first time. A cut of his eyes to the table in the kitchen, the fluorescent light above it flickering, and he sees the source of the noises. A half dozen human hands, severed and bloodless, lay in a row, the fingers bent grotesquely, bones protruding from the flesh in places, and Mycroft is thankful that the only thing he can smell is the cigarette smoke.

“Hm,” Mycroft hums. “Are hammered hands to replace the cake then?”

“No,” Sherlock responds, and his tone is almost indignant. “Only one of them’s been hammered. I’ve got a bat, a crowbar, and a cudgel waiting to be tried out on the rest.”

“How pleasantly you spend your time.”

Mycroft crosses the room to Sherlock’s favorite armchair and deposits his burden, the white standing out almost ludicrously bright amongst the yellowed walls and curtains.

“For you, then,” Mycroft says with a tight little smile. “Happy birthday, little brother.”

“Yes, thank you. Now, don’t let me keep you.” The words rush from Sherlock’s mouth as his back retreats from his brother and toward the kitchen, his hammer raised as though he would continue striking.

“Don’t you want to open it?” Mycroft asks, and the hammer freezes in its downward arc. “I really must insist that you do.”

The sigh that gusts forth is almost louder than the hammer that clatters from his hands. Sherlock strides toward his brother, casting him a look of annoyance, before lifting the lid from the nondescript box. The same long, pale fingers that toss the lid away carelessly swat the tissue paper aside until the gift is revealed.

Even before Mycroft lifts it from the box, Sherlock knows what it is. It’s a Belstaf Millford coat. Irish wool tweed, microporous bonding film, and the odd red button hole on the left side lapel.

“Interesting choice,” Sherlock comments noncommittally, and Mycroft knows it’s the closest thing he’ll get to a thank you. 

“I thought it suited you,” the older man says. “I thought perhaps it might be the first step on the road to respectability”

Sherlock chuckles, a low, sardonic sound, as Mycroft holds the coat up for him to try on.

“Wishful thinking, brother dear.” He slides into the coat, shrugging it onto his shoulders, and he won’t admit how well it fits.

“We’ll see,” Mycroft says, clapping his brother on the shoulders once before wordlessly taking his leave.

Sherlock is tempted to stuff it into a closet and forget about it, but the fluidity it still affords him as he brings the hammer down onto another set of fingers impresses him.

Perhaps, this once, spite can take a back seat to preference. So what if it makes him look respectable? That, at least, affords him the very old, very great pleasure of showing Mycroft he is wrong.


End file.
